Make Up or Break Up
by saragillie
Summary: Jupiter and Caine have a big fight. Will they make up or break up? Written for the eleventh JA Fic Challenge.
**AN: No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth or been taken by Keepers (in case you were wondering, which you probably weren't). I am still writing. Unfortunately, life happened and progress on my longer JA story (currently 33 pages and somewhere past half done) has slowed dramatically. In the meantime, I finally figured out an ending to this oneshot that I started back in September. Enjoy.**

Caine threw up his hands in frustration. "Stinger, you explain it to her!" he ground out before striding across Stinger's yard to the barn. A few seconds after disappearing inside, Jupiter heard the sound of breaking wood.

"Woah. When we first met you told me I'd know when he was mad, but I didn't realize it meant he'd be breaking things!" Jupiter exclaimed to Stinger. "Ugh. Sometimes he makes me mad enough to want to break something too. Like this conversation… we can't ever talk about our relationship without it ending up back at my buying out his contract. I don't want to own him."

Stinger sighed heavily. "I'd been hoping to stay out of this. Look, I'll try and explain, but you have to put aside your ideas about how things 'should' be and listen to how they actually are."

She nodded her assent.

"You're looking at it from an ethical perspective, that owning someone is no better than servitude or slavery," Stinger continued. "We can agree that the ethics are questionable, but this is the way the universe is. Caine is looking at the situation from a security perspective."

"Security?"

"Uh huh. Let me give you an example. When Balem wanted you to sign Earth over to him, what did he do?"

"He kidnapped my family and threatened to kill them," Jupiter replied.

"And you met him on his terms and turf and seriously considered giving him what he asked," Stinger added.

"Sure," she agreed. "But I don't own my family. That was because I love them."

He smirked. "Technically, you do own them, Majesty."

Jupiter glared daggers at him. "Isn't this straying from the original topic?"

"Not exactly. Your family was kidnapped, possibly illegally. If Balem had survived the refinery's collapse, the Aegis would certainly have investigated the timing to see if charges could have been filed against him. Now, the Legion sells the contracts for splices under certain circumstances. They would if they stood to make enough of a profit. If you and Caine are something to each other – friends, dating, lovers, whatever – it makes both you and him vulnerable. Anyone who knows and has either enough influence or money might acquire his contract as a means to hurt you, gain concessions, or manipulate you, and it would be legal."

She bit back an imprecation. Space society was so messed up. "I suppose that's one of the reasons why Entitled and Splices don't associate much," she said bitterly.

"Caine won't put you in that position. It creates a huge risk that you have no defense against. He's trying to protect you," Stinger replied gently. "If you own his contract and something happens, you would, of course, take action and that would appropriate and expected."

"So, the best way to protect him, and for that matter, you, or any other person I care about who's under contract is to buy them? That is just so wrong on so many levels."

Stinger shrugged. "It's the way of the 'verse. But consider, Your Majesty, he will have more freedom and more choices if you own his contract than he would with anyone else. Perhaps society should be changed, but change takes time. It will be decades or even millennia before that happens, given the protracted lives of the ruling aristocracy. In the mean time, will you choose to protect the people you care about?"

Her face scrunched in an expression of revulsion. "But it means participating in a messed up system." She paused a moment and then thought out loud. "Plus, it would take Caine away from the Skyjackers again. I know he wanted that pardon for himself at least as much as he wanted it for you."

"Was it being a Skyjacker again or the wings that he wanted? Is that still what he wants? If it is, you might be able to arrange something with the Legion. Subcontracts don't happen often, but they do exist."

She nodded slowly, acknowledging his words. "I think I need to talk to Caine now."

"I'd give him a bit longer to cool off, Majesty.

She nodded again and he ducked back into the house. She sipped slowly at her glass of lemonade, reflecting on the conversation. When the last drop was gone, she placed the glass on the table and crossed to the barn.

A strange sound coming from inside made her hesitate for a moment at the door. She stepped inside and waited for her eyes to adjust.

Caine was shredding hay bales with absolute concentration, and the inside of the barn looked as though a tornado had passed through. Maybe it would be better to come back later?

No. That was the coward's way out. She owed it to Stinger to save as much of his barn as she could. Swallowing a lump of apprehension, she opened her mouth to speak.

The first sound that came out was more like a squeak than coherent speech. She tried again. "Caine?"

A twitch of one ear was his only acknowledgement of her presence, although he'd probably heard and smelled her before she'd set foot in the barn.

The fact that he hadn't turned on her gave her the courage to continue. "I think I finally understand. I don't like it, but I get it. When you're ready to talk, come find me. And please, try not to destroy too much more of Stinger's barn. If it gets much worse, he'll be sending me a repair bill."

After his slight nod of acknowledgement, she withdrew to the house to wait.

And wait she did. He was distantly polite at dinner that evening and when she called him during the week. It nagged at her all week. She had apologized and reached out, trying to connect. He was shutting her out and she didn't know what to do.

By Saturday she'd had enough. Hot, silent tears dripped onto a sheave on her office desk. She hadn't expected that things would be easy between the two of them, but she'd thought that they'd keep working until they figured things out.

Hurt turned to anger. She stood abruptly and her chair rolled halfway across the room. She stomped around the room. After all they'd been through, how dare he do this to her! Just toss it all away without giving her a say? Especially since she was trying to fix things. She felt the urge to pummel something.

"It would serve him right if I bought his contract just so I could…" Her anger sputtered and abruptly died for two reasons. First, she couldn't think of a satisfactory way to finish the sentence. And second, maybe he was waiting for her _do_ something instead of just talking about it.

So, she wiped her tears, refastened her ponytail, and put a holo-call through to her chief counselor.

"Your Majesty, how may I serve you today?" His secretary, a feathery female Splice named Lorina, answered the call.

"I need to speak with Mr. Jarvis," Jupiter replied. "I wish to acquire a contract."

"Just a moment, Your Majesty." The screen dimmed for several seconds, then brightened as Mr. Jarvis' image appeared. "Lorina says you'd like to purchase a contract?"

She nodded and explained her desire.

"Getting the contract shouldn't be too hard, your Majesty, but the additional terms may not be possible."

She shook her head fiercely. "I'll do what it takes, Mr. Jarvis. Just figure out what that is and make it a priority."

A week came and went, and then two, without word on the contract. Tired of getting the cold shoulder from Caine, she decided not to visit him out at Stinger's farm and sent him the occasional text message instead of calling.

To avoid thinking too hard about disarray in her personal life, Jupiter focused on her work. Not housecleaning, but managing the few pieces of her galactic life that she had a handle on (mostly those relating to Earth and her private properties) and working toward the others (the business and political side of things and learning to speak and read Orousan).

On Wednesday, there was a box waiting for her after work. Of course, the minute she walked through the door, Vladie, Mikka and Moltka pounced on her.

"What'd you order? A tablet, maybe?" Mikka asked. "It's the wrong size to be the phone you've been talking about."

Jupiter glanced at the box, saw her sigil in the corner and went very still.

"I'm going out. Don't wait dinner for me. Tell Mama I'm not sure when I'll be back, but I'll call if it gets late." She turned and walked back out the door she had just come in.

When she was out of sight of the house, she tore into the box and pulled out three sheaves, a small one on top of two larger ones. She tucked them back into the box, which was mostly intact, and caught the next bus back into the city.

In the privacy of her office, she turned on the smallest sheave. Mr. Jarvis' voice spoke. "Your Majesty, the task turned out to be less difficult than expected, although the extra concessions were rather expensive. All you need to do is to seal one of them."

She dropped the sheave on the desk and called Kiza for a ride. Since her citizenship paperwork was in process, she wasn't about to do something that might jeopardize it like driving without a license.

Then she placed an order for several large pizzas.

The pizza arrived twenty minutes before Kiza did, and Jupiter resisted the urge to sample it before dinner.

"Your Majesty, please tell me that you're going to do something about Caine," Kiza said once they were on the road out of the city. "He's supposed to be on leave, but he's been working twelve hours a day. He's fixed everything that Dad kept saying he was going to get around to. He practically rebuilt the barn, and now he's threatening to paint the house."

Jupiter felt a small surge of satisfaction that he wasn't as unaffected as he'd seemed to her and then sorry that their personal business had spilled over so badly on their friends.

"I've been trying to for the past three weeks," she offered Kiza a small smile. "But he hasn't been very responsive to my overtures. I come with a peace offering tonight. I just hope it works."

"Feeding them is always a good place to start," Kiza commented.

Jupiter ignored the unstated hint for information. "Anything interesting happen out there that I should know about?" she asked, waving a hand toward the sky.

Kiza filled the rest of the drive with space gossip and Jupiter shared a story or two about her family. But mostly she worried about the conversation she would have with Caine after dinner. If it didn't go right…

She couldn't bear to think about that so she forced herself to pay closer attention to Kiza's words about the latest Entitled scandal.

Stinger's place was a lot less decrepit than it had before. The barn no longer looked as though a brisk wind might blow it over and it was freshly painted. The weeds along the road had been mowed. But the biggest change was the house. Places that had been patched were now fixed and the exposed tarpaper was covered with proper siding.

"Did he reside the whole house?" she asked, astonished at the transformation.

Kiza nodded. "Yes, your Majesty, and he reroofed it."

"I can see why he wants to paint."

"But it would disturb the bees," Kiza pointed out.

"Stinger can't just ask them to move?" Jupiter asked.

Kiza laughed. "It's not that easy. He'd have to move them to new hives."

Although the pizza was excellent, the dinner conversation was awkward. The unresolved issues between Jupiter and Caine loomed over everyone.

The moment dinner was over, Kiza disappeared into the kitchen claiming it was a disaster and Stinger retreated to his office muttering something about work that had to be finished tonight. Caine and Jupiter were left alone at the table.

She stared at him, drinking him in. She had missed him desperately the past month. Oh, how she wished he'd greeted her at the door with a hug and kiss instead of a polite nod.

She pushed aside anger and fear and reached for the happy memories of their time together to steady herself for the coming conversation.

"We need to talk, Caine. Let's go for a walk." She was proud of how even her tone was.

"Yes, your Majesty."

"I can carry that," he offered when she picked up the box.

"I got it. It's not heavy."

He followed her silently out the door and into the fields of Stinger's farm.

Jupiter inhaled the crisp smell of fall as she led them toward the pond. It brought back childhood memories of jumping into large piles of leaves.

When she sat down in patch of grass a few feet from the water's edge, Caine settled into a parade rest about a foot behind her.

"Nuh-uh, sit," she commanded, pointing to a spot next to her. "I can't talk to you like that."

When he was seated, she glanced over at him. "Look. I'm tired of fighting, strained conversations, and not seeing you. I miss you. I miss your kisses, dancing across the skies of Chicago together, and I love seeing Chicago through new eyes. I tried to make up, to fix things between us, but you keep shutting me out."

Jupiter paused and then glanced over at him to see if he had anything to say. He was staring at a tree on the far side of the pond. Her heart dropped into her stomach. This was bad.

"Say something?" she asked in a small voice. "Anything?"

He cringed. "I don't know what to say."

"Tell me how you feel. I know you were angry. Are you still mad at me?"

He shrugged.

"Successful relationships take work, Caine. If we don't talk to each other and try to resolve our problems or agree to disagree on some of them, this fragile thing we have growing between us will die. I don't want that, but you have to decide. Are you in or out?"

When he failed to reply, she pulled the two remaining sheaves out of the box and handed them to him. "These are for you. I waited so long to come see to you because I was waiting for them."

He turned on the first one and read for a minute, then he set it on the ground next to him and turned on the other. He looked lost and overwhelmed. "Your Majesty?"

"Stinger told me I should ask you what you wanted, but you wouldn't talk to me so I arranged for the options he suggested. Just tell me which one of those you want me to seal."

While Caine sat still as a statue, Jupiter twisted her fingers together to avoid biting her nails. Ragged nails and royalty didn't mix and she'd been trying to break herself of the habit.

He stood abruptly. "I need time to think." The next moment, he was in the air, furiously flying an intricate pattern.

Jupiter watched in amazement at his precision and speed, and finally decided he must be doing some kind of Skyjacker drill. He was beauty in motion and the most incredible person she'd ever met. He'd persevered in difficult circumstances and succeeded anyway. She'd missed him so much the past few weeks.

The backbeat of Caine's wings raised clouds dust as he landed and Jupiter sneezed.

Before the air cleared, he scooped her into his arms and kissed her with a depth and a passion that made her heart pound and her head spin. Awareness of her surroundings faded and she lost herself in bliss.

A while later, desperate for air, she pulled back from the kiss.

"Caine?" Awash in a flood of emotion, she could only say his name.

He dropped to one knee, wings mantled and bowed his head. "I'm yours, your Majesty, now and forever. Do with me as you will."

It brought to mind the image of a knight kneeling before a king, making Jupiter very uncomfortable. She reached for his hand and tugged him into an upright position.

"Caine, I don't want you to be my subject or my servant. Tell me what you want."

He stared down at the ground, blinking. "I never want to leave your side."

She stepped close and looked up into his face. A sheen of tears glistened in his eyes. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to, but I would very much like to know why."

"You don't even see the things that others think make me less: less important, less capable, less than normal. You treat me as an equal. You ask my opinions because you really care what I think. You offered me a real choice, even after I blew you off. Other royalty would have had me put down for even disagreeing with them. Somehow, you see me as worthy of you."

At his spoke, emotion of a different sort overwhelmed Jupiter and silent tears made tracks in the dust that clung to her skin. It was a mixture of anger at the twisted nature of society, sadness because of his experiences, and resolve to make the universe a better place. For him and others like him.

She had the urge to explain her childhood, what it was like growing up as an illegal immigrant. They had more in common than he knew. Being an illegal and speaking Russian were two reasons that other kids had picked on her and told her that she didn't belong.

A sarcastic laugh escaped at the irony that now she owned them.

Caine tilted his head and looked at her quizzically.

"I just thought of something that made me laugh," she explained lamely. She paused to refocus her thoughts, then bent down to pick up the sheaves.

She thumbed one on. Wrong one. He didn't want to go back to the Legion. She dropped it. When the other was lit, she sealed it.

"So, now what?" she asked tentatively.

"Stinger can send that one back to your lawyer. As for this one…" He ground the heel of his boot into the sheave until it was broken in several parts. "Let's sprinkle its remains in the water."

She grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the house. On the porch, he tugged his hand from hers and wiped the dust from her face, erasing the evidence of her tears.

Kiza heard the back door as it closed behind them, came out of the kitchen and squealed with delight when she spotted their joined hands. A few moments later, Stinger emerged from his office.

He nodded to Caine. "Glad to see you've finally got that."

Caine handed Stinger the sheave. "Please send this to…" He looked to Jupiter who finished his sentence. "… Mr. Jarvis, Jarvis Legal, Building 1298, Quadrant 23, Outer Ring, Orous."

"We have some place to be," Jupiter continued. "Thanks for everything. Caine will see me home."

Jupiter danced on air, literally, with her one true love, all the way from Stinger's farm to Lake Michigan, where they sprinkled the remains of his Legion career over the water and celebrated their future with long passionate kisses.


End file.
